8 replies to this topic

[Sphere]

Ok, I promised a review, so, here it is.

Review of the Samsung SGH-U600

First off, this phone looks awesome, it weighs totally nothing, the soft-touch front panel looks smooth and it almost fits into my wallet. The TFT screen is good quality and gives a very clear picture. not much to complain there.

General usability
The overall usability of the phone is good, the keypad can be reached by sliding the phone open and sliding down will automatically lock the keys that are still exposed unless the powerbutton on the top is briefly pressed.

The keypad is a bit unreachable because of the edges when the phone is open. Mainly the bottom row, | * | 0 | # |, are a bit cramped and easily pressed by accident or when trying to use one of those keys, a 7, 8 or 9 is easily pressed along. It's a bit a design flaw, it needs getting used to and a lot of care.

The buttons on the side of the phone, volume up/down and camera, are good. They feel just right when pressed. Just they way you'd like it. Not like you have to push the phone in half, nor like when you even breath at them, they're pressed.
You clearly feel a "click" when pressing them. Very comfortable.

The frontkeys, the softtouch are a bit unresponsive sometimes, but this is not really a problem, because it's a matter of holding your finger on them a bit longer. I'm guessing this is a security feature, to prevent the user from accidentally doing all kind of things while opening or closing the slider.


Calling and being called
The audio quality of the phone is good, no cracking noises, not even when the battery is almost dead. Unlike the older phones, who sometimes had the "feature" of echoing, this phone doesn't.
The dialing or calling from the phonebook is pretty easy, but ending the call is a bit more complicated. Because, it's a matter of closing the phone.
Now for the complicated part:
If you don't want to slide the phone down, you have to press the center button and then the end-call button. For me, this is making no sense, but again, I think it's a security feature so the call isn't accidentally ended by your cheek pressing on the end-call button.

Ah well, sliding down will do most of the time.


System and features
First off, I have to mention this, the phone's operating system is a Linux system!

As all mobile phones, this phone has offcourse an addressbook, bluetooth, java support, MMS, SMS and what not. The standard really.
The 3.2 megapixel camera is a cute extra, but won't replace a real camera. The quality is a bit grainy, and the responsetime of the camera is way to slow to actually make good pictures with it.
The audio player delivers, as the calling quality, good quality sound. Don't expect a dolby-surround, it's still a phone, but I've heard far worse, and when the headset is connected, it comes pretty close to a high-end MP3 player like the Creative ZEN.
The software on the phone is very complete, and pretty intuitive to use. If you're switching from another brand of phone, it's always a bit of getting used to, but it's easy to get a grasp off.

Though some settings are placed on strange locations, like Bluetooth being placed under "Applications" and not "Settings" and a few other, I still think it ain't that hard to get used to.


SMS MMS Internet
The SMS/MMS feature does its job, but, like most people will agree, the way of the dictionary is plainly bad. Like most people I've talked with, the way Nokia handles the SMS dictionary typing is the best there is. And I have to say, I've had Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson, and now Samsung, Samsung sucks at easy-typing. The way they've programmed this is far from user friendly. It's even unclear at first how the dictionary works, and the dictionary is well..... empty basically.
I still haven't got a hang of fast typing on this phone, but then again, I don't use it very often. But, the way the T9 is handled, I think I'm gonna switch back to fully typing myself, because for now, that seems to work faster then the T9 dictionary.

The build in browser does the job, as usual, it's just a standard java-based browser. But, I prefer to use the Opera mini as my main browser. Which can be installed and works like a charm. No problems there.


Extra's
The phone comes with a stereo headset which does the job, but, unlike Sony-Ericssons, the actual earpieces cannot be replaced easily. This is not strange, but just a bit a bummer, because when your headset's microphone is still ok, but the earpieces are defected, your can throw away the entire headset.
And, because the cables look a bit thin... I'm afraid it won't take long to destroy this headset.

On the side of the phone is the connector for USB, Charger and headset, all on the same connector. Pretty easy and straight forward.

On the other side is a max 2G microSD slot, works easy, does the job.

When connecting the phone to your computer through USB, the phone will by default ask the question what kind of connection you wanna make:
>Samsung PC Studio
>Media Player
>Mass Storage
This is pretty neat I think, I've never seen it before. The mass storage only works when a SD card is inserted, but that's ok, you'll need one of those anyway.
The PC Studio software is straight-forward easy to use, nothing complicated. Though I don't know much about it, since I don't use Windows much, I can't really tell anything about that.
The Media Player is in my opinion a useless feature... why play media from your phone if you can just play it on your PC?
The mass storage on the other hand rules. It works perfectly, it's fast, it's easy, and it saves a lot of time when you wanna place files on the phone. No complicated things through the official software, it's simply recognized as a mass storage device.

The phone's internal memory is only 60MB, which is a bit small, especially when considering that if you want to use MP3's as ringtone, the mp3's must be located on the phone's memory. This is probably done to save battery, because reading the card requires more power then reading from the phone's memory.
It is a bit small though, 60MB, for me, I have 14 groups that all have their own mp3 ringtone... there's not much space left. And images taken with the camera are stored on the phone's memory as well. I haven't found out any way to change that to the SD card. I move them by hand everytime I've taken one.

Battery, slide, feel
The battery lasts, for me with bluetooth on almost 24/7 about 4 to 5 days, including 5 hours calling. It's pretty long considering the size of the battery!
The battery is charged in about 3 hours, and when it's almost empty, the phone will start warning you... in a very annoying way, so you really not only want to connect the charger to powerup the battery, you also wanna do that because you want to get rid of the very very annoying noise.

the slide and feel of the phone are ok, the slide doesn't feel like the top will just be launched off the phone, nor does it feel like you'll need a crowbar to open it. It just works smooth and supposedly has a very high slide count.


Well, that's it pretty much.
I give this phone a 7 for the total out of 10, with the main disappointment the typing, the cramped keypad and the small internal memory.


If you like this review please Digg it.

Greetings,
~Sphere

[Nvyseal]

Thanks Sphere, great review. Sounds like a great phone. I like phones that have a long battery life

dugg!

[Scuba]

Nvyseal, on Aug 11 2007, 10:02 AM, said:

Thanks Sphere, great review. Sounds like a great phone. I like phones that have a long battery life

dugg!

I have to agree, great review. Like I said before, I couldnt find a whole lot on it and its allways better to get someones review on it who has had a chance to test it out in the real world. I found out what I was curious about and hope to ditch my old skool nokia. Thanks again!

[chriso_86]

I'm going for the RAZR 2 when it comes out to Verizon beginning of Sept. I'll let you all know how it is!

[m.oreilly]

chriso_86, on Aug 12 2007, 09:06 PM, said:

I'm going for the RAZR 2 when it comes out to Verizon beginning of Sept. I'll let you all know how it is!

i think i'll get the $19 special next time i redo my contract: these fancy phones have too many buttons (which get pressed, and do bad things, when trying to "holster" them), are now too small (unless you have small hands, you simultaneously lock the thing, make a movie, download the latest tom cruz film, agree to pay for theater tickets in france, then, finally loosing your grip, drop it in the toilet, all while you just wanted to check your missed calls...)

[hog]

m.oreilly, on Aug 13 2007, 12:37 AM, said:

these fancy phones have too many buttons (which get pressed, and do bad things, when trying to "holster" them), are now too small (unless you have small hands, you simultaneously lock the thing, make a movie, download the latest tom cruz film, agree to pay for theater tickets in france, then, finally loosing your grip, drop it in the toilet, all while you just wanted to check your missed calls...)

[chriso_86]

MO you sound like an old women after that statement!!!

[Sphere]

He just has hulk-sized hands

[m.oreilly]

Sphere, on Aug 13 2007, 02:33 PM, said:

He just has hulk-sized hands